Each Tuesday in May, our Education Partnerships Manager Amy Franks will select one free Audible audiobook and share her review along with a special guest kid listener. (As it turns out, Amy’s cat Fancy is also a fan of audiobooks — so she actually has TWO special guests!) This week’s guest kid listener is Hana, a ten-year-old fourth grader.
This week’s recommendation:
Jukebox Joyride Author: Jacob Stein, Jason Rabinowitz, The Pop Ups Narrator: Jason Rabinowitz, Jacob Stein, Cara Samantha, Susan Bennett, Noel MacNeal, Carly Ciarrocchi Length: 3 hours 31 minutes Suggested age: 9-12
Synopsis: If you could go back in time to witness any concert from all of history, what would it be? Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock? Mozart in the Salzburg court? The Beatles’ rooftop farewell?
Jukebox Joyride follows 12-year-old twins Jules and George on a wild adventure through time. Their Uncle Bob, a renowned ethnomusicologist (he studies music!), has discovered the secret to time travel and is having a ball joyriding through history checking out the best concerts ever…but something’s gone wrong! A sinister force has been unleashed, someone is chasing after Uncle Bob, and the fate of all music hangs in the balance!
Now, it’s up to Jules and George to find their uncle before their new rival does! It’s a musical adventure that brings the twins from the birth of jazz in New Orleans to a performance by an 11- year-old Mozart in Vienna, all while trying to make it back to the present day to pass their history test!
Featuring original songs and historical settings, this Audible Original is sure to captivate the entire household. Jukebox Joyride is a swashbuckling adventure that will get kids excited about history and making their own music.
Amy says:
Jukebox Joyride gets off to a bit of a slow start, then becomes a fast-paced thriller full of mystery, mishaps, and music. Eleven-year-old twins George and Jules are budding musicians who cross space and time searching for their beloved Uncle Bob who has gone missing in a most mysterious way. In a race against time and a villain named Dirk, the music box that is their time machine provides the twins with the adventure of a lifetime. As they jump from time period to time period, George and Jules meet famous figures in music history, outsmart and outrun bad guys, discover Uncle Bob is not the boring old guy they thought he was, and learn a little about music history as they live it. Tune in to this one to discover if the twins ever find Uncle Bob, if George ever beats his crippling stage fright, and if Dirk coming face-to-face with his past changes his evil plan hatching ways in the present.
Hana says:
This is an action book about music history. I would describe it as exciting, detailed, action packed, and funny. The details made the book really good. It didn’t just tell what happened to George and Jules and their Uncle Bob. The details and the readers made it feel like it was happening right next to me. Some of the characters were funny too. It had some laughs. It was kind of fun to listen for the surprises, and I learned about where jazz came from. I think kids that like mysteries and comedies and are interested in music would enjoy this book.
Kid listener rating:
